November 21, 2012

I was a metal-head and a punk, but my appreciation for music goes far beyond that. I was a musician. I guess I should use that in the present tense–I AM a musician. But I have trouble accepting that, always have.

I’m now faced with declined hearing due to the OI. I’m starting to wear my hearing aide more often (I have two but one needs adjustment), particularly when I sing and want to enjoy undertones in music. Going deaf is one of my biggest fears. I often think that I’ll definitely kill myself if that ever happens.

But lately, I’ve been calmer, more generally content–not happy, just content. I don’t like the word happy. My contentment, however, has reached back out to the warm embrace of music, the one thing that has saved my life before.

I picked up my ukulele a few months ago when I was in the dark and the PLDs had moved in again. And though I haven’t played recently, I still plan to play it and eventually maybe write songs again. Most of my songs start off as poems anyway, so maybe (just maybe) I could adapt some of my NaPoWriMo poems as uke songs.

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Oh right, Lana! So on my Borderline Girl Song Week Thirteen post, I posted a Lana Del Rey Song. Her real name is Lizzy Grant. In that post, I called her pretentious but good. I suppose though, that pretentious is just a label given to any musician that takes their music seriously. So I will back away from that word. I’ve been listening to her more and more. Surprisingly, despite my minuscule stature, I sing better in her register, or rather, women who sing in lower, contralto registers like two of my favorites–Amy Winehouse and Fiona Apple.

I’m liking her more and more. I want to sing again and shout out loud. But I’m afraid. Afraid I’ll fail. Afraid I’ll quit like I have before. I can’t let the fear of my hearing loss take control of my actions though.

Here she is singing live. Oh, yeah, and it turns out she CAN sing very well live. It just depends.

July 17, 2012

There is so much I want to write about (and not just about myself, heh).

I wish I had the poetic air that filled me in April during NaPoWriMo. It just seems to have depleted. But I’ve been feeling somewhat, oh I don’t know, “normal”. Is that even an accurate way of describing not wanting to kill yourself everyday?

I was really excercizing some demons there with some of those poems. Actually, the Pretty Little Demons (PLDs) were exercising the Mouse if you recall the ping-pong matches they started in May and all the other ruckus.

Feels like an enema is being done in my head now. But I will write and/or sketch something proper soon enough (as if I ever did). For now, I give you this from Nacho Libre:

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p.s. I saw Dusty yesterday. We had sex. And I want to have sex with him again and again and again and again. I know. I know. But he’ll be leaving for Brazil tomorrow, for a few months, with his family (his dad is Brazilian). And I have a therapy appointment tomorrow (have to ride the MetroLift since it’s been raining all week, bleugh). I kind of want to tell her, the therapist, about Dusty since it’s barely my second session in which we’ll do an overview of my life’s major problems–and well, the Saga of Dusty and P covers a lot of my druggy days/years. But I’ve never been open with therapists about sexual things. Should I tell her about him? It’s just… I think I’m hypomanic… I should leave this for another post.

April 30, 2012

I stand barefoot on the stone.
Blue and brown ocean in front of me,
brown like my eyes, like my skin,
brown and blue like my latin blood
before it surfaces, before it floods
from its tunnel–a changeling, I stand.

My feet are soft like a child’s;
they are not calloused like my
young heart. I’ve lived so many
lives with it, this young heart.

These feet with their skeleton
butterfly shoes of a skater set
beside, ha, a skater that cannot run
but has gotten so far. These feet,
these shoes know the woes of an old man.

My father stands beside me by the
sand dunes, his curls like clouds.
He whispers something my old ears
cannot catch–words, slippery fish thrown out.
I wonder what it was but I need
not ask. He knows I know.

Old man knew what living without meant.
His closed hazel eyes, his little asthma
chest wrapped in a potato sack, sleeping
next to his mother. And I wonder if
the assumptions we make bear the fruit of

our fathers. Assumptions made are the
leather straps that wrap and tug us blind;
that leathery skin, our tongues
lash out from history’s hungry hunts.
I wonder if I stand here long enough,

will I make a lasting print,
a dent on this solid rock?
These were the fragments, the embers
remembered from March to September.
I look at my father and wonder,

April 30, 2012

Today’s prompt is to write a poem that begins with the line, “I remember when.”

On Saturday, I spent the day with just myself and the dogs; my dad was out shooting a wedding and my mom was assisting him. My cellphone rang and Luna and her daddy started barking and jumping towards the front door.

April 28, 2012

A swelling silence bubbles in
this space above my head.
Slipping severed senses
call me in into
the rabbit hole.

I rise from it
from

Reality. Time. Space
and illusion
coalesce.

Transforms and tells me
what to do,
how to love,
how to not conform
to material view.

Slipping severed senses.
Electromagnetic
waves around us resound–
audio and indigo
and micro
waves hugging us,
encompass us–
violets greens yellows blues
oranges and reds.
The colors of my thoughts
meet the color
of my rage
as they do not separate
the white light
but combine my
courage. It is all
I have.
All I’ve ever had.

The light shimmering through
this sunroof simply allows me
to see this room, this space
completely–
not only for
what passes
passions
eyes.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~ Siddhartha Guatama Buddha

Whew this one came out of me quickly like a fart. Now to catch up, if I can.

Oh and if you’ve been reading, you know I tragically lost Lorna the other day and haven’t had the chance to birth her or any other poem, but I did clean up and edit Lorna 1 & 2 in the meantime and plan to bring back 3 & 4 by any means possible.

April 25, 2012

I.
Lorna —
running from awful nights,
nothing but a cataclysmic calamity
all to cavil and nothing to hold.
Too many nails digging in skin;
that’s what it is living
in this bawdy city.

Lorna, cursing. spiting, splitting.Of all nights,it had to rain.
Lorna, taking flight,
choosing not to
fill this rancor.
Choosing to churn it,
burn it into ash
and not fall in it anymore.

Bags waiting out back, but I
can’t carry many. It can’t show.
Rain, drilling, sizzling drops.
Rain, like Lorna, bouncing off roof tops,
drops son sounds of bags of falling diamonds,
crashing on hardwood floors.
Lorna, a caring crystal in unfamiliar
hands, in this odious out pour.

Downstairs, all that
drinking, all that clinking,
all that clamoring, and Lorna halts. But I can’t sink! Not tonight.
Stick with your plan! Lorna
La Mas Bonita,
what Big Johnny y los otros osos
ogros la llamaban,
has to rush
—hush.

Today’s prompt was to write a lipogram/Beautiful Outlaw/Beautiful In-Law. I didn’t even know what that was but apparently, it’s “a poem that explicitly refrains from using certain letters.” I took the letter “e” out as it’s the most common and vowels are the most challenging ones to remove but are also more rewarding when it comes to results. Hey, learned something.

Day four’s prompt was to write a poem in the style of a twelve bar blues song. Well this one’s a variation of a twelve bar, me thinks. It’s a good thing I know music, like reading it and shit but it’s been a while since I’ve sat in front of a piano so I may be way off.